Progressive group unveils five debate recommendations for Biden

A progressive group unveiled five recommendations for President Biden ahead of the first presidential debate of the general election season Thursday.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) sent Biden a debate memo outlining the group’s suggestions for the president to succeed in the face-off against former President Trump.

The group’s top recommendation is for Bident to “create high-drama clashes on popular economic issues,” according to the memo obtained by The Hill.

“In a vibes-centric political world, the trick to breaking through on policy is to create clashes on popular issues – creating drama-filled debate moments that are well circulated,” the memo said, noting that a strong moment will “win on vibes” and “win on policy.” 

Politico Playbook first reported the memo.

The committee also focused on “high-drama clashes” in the next recommendation, suggesting Biden bait the former president into them by positioning Trump against his own past remarks or those of his GOP allies.

The group posited that the former president is likely to deny unpopular opinions on the debate stage — even if they’re beliefs his potential vice presidential picks have held or remarks he’s made previously — if Biden draws attention to the conflicting remarks, then Trump is “more likely to fumble the ball, look unprincipled, and create a ‘moment’ that goes viral.”

The committee also suggested Biden make room for his “forward-looking vision” by contrasting the two candidates’ previous and current actions in office and compare what a future would look like under each.

Tying Social Security cuts to taxing the wealthy has already proven an advantageous strategy for Biden, the group argued. It suggested Biden stick with that language on the debate stage, as well.

“The reason to keep fusing Social Security and taxing the wealthy together as one issue is that Trump cannot pretend to match that position. He must support renewing the Trump tax cuts for billionaires, and that inherently means draining money that ultimately could be used to protect Social Security,” the memo said.

The committee’s last advice to Biden was to frame progress in microeconomic terms, as opposed to macroeconomic terms.

Polling from the PCCC and Data For Progress showed people concerned about the economy care about issues “that impact their family budgets, not macroeconomic numbers like GDP,” according to the memo.

Biden and Trump will face off for the first presidential debate on Thursday at 9 p.m. CNN is hosting the debate in Atlanta, Ga., with Dana Bash and Jake Tapper moderating. The two candidates have been prepping their attacks and policy stances for the debate in recent days.

Laura Kelly contributed reporting.